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Missouri Developers to Build World’s Largest Cross

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BRANSON, Mo. - A group of developers are asking for donations to build a 200 foot tall cross near Branson.

Kerry Brown is the Executive Director at Images at the Cross, a non-profit group aiming to build this monument. Brown’s father, Dean, purchased the land and Images has already gotten permission from the zoning commission to go ahead and build the monument. The website gives several donation options, but Kerry says he plans to ask local ministries to collect money from parisioners, a dollar a person, for a month. He says he orignially thought the project was going to cost between 15 and 20 million dollars, but a man who has experience with building large churches says that’s not the case.

“He told us it would be about a fourth or a third of what we had originally thought,” he said. So the project is budgeted between $3 and 5 million.

In a video on the site, founder Dean Brown says more than 3 million people will travel by the monument every year, and it’s a day’s drive for 80 million Americans.

Kerry Brown says there will be duel elevators inside the monument to transport people to the horizontal part of the cross where there he says the story of Jesus’ life will be told. The structure will be white from the outside, but once visitors are inside, they’ll be able to see through the walls. The cross will be built on a mountain that stands about 100 feet tall.

According to the donor recognition page of the site, the organization has gotten help from people across the United States, as far away as New York.

The largest cross in the world right now is in Effingham, Illinois; it’s 198 feet tall.